Chaser’s War On Editing

Following complaints over a skit in The Chaser’s War On Everything, ABC Managing Director Mark Scott has indicated that broadcast approval procedures will be re-examined.

We’re going to look at those processes … I mean we all know that The Chaser push the edges and it’s a tightrope that we walk, and I suppose there are many, many skits that they’ve put to air that have offended someone along the way – that’s part of the nature of the satirical and black comedy that they do.

The usual processes were put in place around this program, but the red flag didn’t go up [and] we could see today, that that was the wrong judgment call.

The skit – depicting critically ill children being denied wishes from the ‘Make A Realistic Wish Foundation’ whose tag line was ‘Why go to any trouble when they’re only going to die anyway?’ – has been edited out of the episode shown on ABC iView.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has suggested that the Chaser team should ‘hang their heads in shame’ for the effort [Ed Note: Kevin Rudd would probably say puppies playing in a bathtub full of soap suds is ‘revolting’ if it meant he got his mug on TV for another 2 minutes].

The Daily Telegraph noted a similarity between the Chaser segment and a video from The Onion in which a child bankrupts the Make-A-Wish Foundation by wishing for never-ending wishes.